


Midnight meeting

by LostinFic



Series: Hardy x Hannah ficlets [1]
Category: Broadchurch, Secret Diary of a Call Girl (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, One Shot, Teninch Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 20:52:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2402483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostinFic/pseuds/LostinFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompts: Midnight meeting "Remember this?" and "I had a dream about you last night."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight meeting

Hannah used to meet him at that fancy hotel on Knightsbridge but it’s in a more reasonably priced hotel in Earl’s court this week. There’s no bar to escape to while he sleeps, and she’s not going to lie by his side while he snores. He’s not one of her favorite clients but he’s not unpleasant enough to end their weekly all-nighter appointments. 

 

Midnight. Seven hours to go.

 

She puts on the white terry cloth robe and steps outside, on the balcony. The June night is just warm enough and the concrete under her feet perfectly cool. The air smells of honey and the moon crescent is the same shade of golden yellow.

 

She leans on the wrought iron balustrade and looks three stories below at a group of merry passersby, wondering what her friends are doing tonight. She’s bored.

 

She hears the door to the adjacent balcony slide open and out walks a tall, lanky man. She smiles politely but he doesn’t. There’s barely one metre between the two rooms, and she can hear him take deep breaths with both hands on his hips.

 

She contemplates the way his shirt hangs off his bony shoulders and his moonlit profile, all sharp angles. He seems worried.

“You done?” he asks after a while, facing her.

Caught red-handed, she blushes.

“Sorry.”

 

It’s his turn to stare, apparently thinking that her earlier scrutiny gives him the right to do so as well. She keeps her chin up and her eyes on him until he’s done. His eyebrows rise as if thinking “not bad”. She smirks.

 

She’s about to make some witty remark, however he starts texting, so she gives up.

 

Melancholy notes of trumpet rise up in the night air, followed by the sultry voice of a woman. Both turn their attention to the beer garden across the street where a live band is playing. They listen for a while, leaning on the railing. She finds herself swaying gently to the jazzy rhythm. Her neighbour starts whistling along but stops when their eyes meet.

“What’s the name of that song?” she asks, more to engage in conversation than out of real curiosity.

“ _Moonlight in Vermont_ , I think.”

“It’s nice. You like—“

“Belle?”

Her client has woken up.

“Good night,” she says hastily before returning inside the room.

 

* * *

 

 

She sees him again the next week around midnight. She’s in a different room, two balconies away from him. This time he smiles back and it makes him look about ten years younger.

 

And again the following week, when their balconies are in diagonal. He smiles first. They exchange a few words but it starts to rain.

 

Next time, she’s back in the same room as the first night, and she observes him from behind the curtains before going out. He’s looking around, then down at his watch, then at the other balconies again. Her stomach does a little flip when she realizes he must be looking for her.

 

“Hey you,” she says as she steps out.

“Hey, hi… you.”

He runs a hand over the back of his head.

“Hannah.”

She extends her arm over the balustrade, across the space between their rooms.

“Detec— Alec Hardy.”

Only the tips of his fingers reach her, and they hook their first phalanges together in an attempt at shaking hands. It’s nice, touching. It’s such an integral part of her job, she forgets sometimes what it’s like, that little spark of excitement that comes from that first physical contact.

 

The night is hot, her silk nightie feels like a wool sweater and the humidity like a second skin. At least, there’s a light breeze outside, rustling the leaves of nearby sycamores. He presses a cold water bottle to his forehead, perspiration sliding along his temples. They exchange a knowing look and a chuckle.

He seems to be in a better mood than usual, more open, and she jumps at the chance to make him talk.

“What brings you to London?” she asks.

“Appointments… medical appointments.”

“Nothing serious I hope.”

Alec shrugs and leans forward on his elbows.

“You?”

“Oh, I’m from London, I’m just… meeting someone.”

“Someone you don’t sleep with?”

Very perceptive and a bit curt.

“He snores… are you by yourself?”

He nods, looking down at his hands, rubbing his palms together.

 

When he looks back up, he studies the structure surrounding them, there’s a narrow spiral staircase between the two balconies.

“I think I could…” He grasps the ladder, puts one foot on the balustrade and pulls himself up.

Hannah squeaks when he loses his balance but he manages to stay upright and he steps onto the staircase.

“Wait, don’t come here.”

“Why not?”

She jerks her head towards the room where another man is sleeping. He nods and extends his hand in invitation. She pulls a face, uncertain.

“C’mon.”

Barefoot and in a silk slip is far from the ideal attire to do acrobatics, but she manages to pull herself up on the railing. Hardy grabs her securely and she makes in onto the staircase. She sits beside him on the steps, laughing in relief rather than mirth.

 

The black metal under her legs is only slightly cooler than the air, and the moon is so bright it could be burning. Just like the first night, jazzy trumpet notes swirl up to their ears. She could almost believe they’re in New Orleans. Far away from here. She rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. He lays his scruffy cheek on her hair and they listen in silence as the woman sings about the blues.

  

* * *

 

“I had a dream about you last night,” Hannah says, leaning over the balustrade to look at Hardy on the floor below.

He looks up as best as he can, craning back his neck.

“What was I doing?”

It was quite an elaborate dream and she wants to tell him all about it but their location is awkward. Plus, she’s afraid her client might wake up if she keeps on talking so loud.

“Can I come down?”

She’s never seen him smile so wide before.

 

She puts her coral summer dress back on, scribbles a message on the hotel stationary and escapes.

 

He opens the door before she has time to knock.

 

His room is like the others with its vaguely Asian theme but his looks lived in. There are clothes, newspapers and basic kitchenware piled up on every surface in a somewhat tidy way. It doesn’t have that sterile hotel smell either.

“How long are you here for?”

“Two months.”

His medical condition must be more serious than he’d let on but she doesn’t ask.

“Tea?” he offers.

 

She looks at him while he fills the kettle and searches for a second cup. She can see him better now even though only a paper lamp is lit. She hadn’t noticed his freckles before nor the hint of ginger in his hair.

"So, that dream?" he asks, handing her a mug, keeping the other one for himself.

She sits on the bed, back against the bamboo headboard.

"We were flying over London," she starts, "we’d jumped right off the balcony, but it was more like London moving under us, than us moving above it you know, like we were just suspended.”

He sits at the foot of the bed, one leg bent, the other resting on the floor, looking rather amused. He motions for her to continue.

“Then we went shopping for socks, you know, at the Harrod’s in the clouds.”

“Aye. sure, where else?”

She describes a salesperson who looked something like a cross between an Oompa Loompa and Postman Pat.

“You must think I’m crazy,” Hannah says.

“My ex, she was really into dream interpretation, she’d say it has something to do with your father.”

 

They slip easily into a conversation about strange dreams they’ve had. He moves closer until he’s also sitting against the headboard. He smells nice, she likes the woodsy undertones of his cologne.

 

They’re having a laugh until he tells her about a recurring nightmare he has in which he tries and fails to save his 10 year-old self from drowning in a stormy ocean.

“Is that why you can’t sleep?” she asks.

“I don’t even try to anymore.”

It’s his turn to rest his head on her shoulder.

Who are you? what happened to you? she wants to ask but it’s better, easier, if she doesn’t know too much about him.

 

A noise coming from the room above them makes her panic at the thought of her client up there. She gets off the bed in a flash.

"Fuck, just give me a mo… or longer," she says to a bemused Hardy.

 

She rushes back to her room and opens the door carefully. The older man is still in bed. She looks closer and waves her hand in front of his face, he doesn’t budge and keeps snoring. The bed must have creaked when he changed position. She quickly brushes her teeth and goes back downstairs.

 

_Pulp Fiction_  is on the telly when she enters Alec’s room

"Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of ya," Alec says at the same time as the character.

It doesn’t have quite the same effect with his Scottish accent.

He’s appalled to learn she’s never seen that movie before. So they lie on their stomachs on the bed to watch it.

 

Their feet knock together every once in a while, by accident at first, then on purpose. The fight is on when he catches her mischievous smile. They flap their legs at each other, laughing, until he successfully locks his ankles around her calf.

“I surrender, I surrender,” she declares melodramatically.

He lets go of her leg with one last soft chuckle. She turns on her side towards him, forgetting the movie. Alec mirrors her position, head resting on his bent arm.

 

She can think of many questions to ask him, to fill the silence settling in, but she prefers this: looking at him, feeling the heat radiating off his body, their hands resting side by side between them. It’s nice. Maybe more than nice.

 

His eyelids are getting heavier, his blinks longer, he fights to stay awake, asking her questions but his sentences keep getting shorter. She’s drowsy too but even if she went back to her room she wouldn’t sleep. She’s worried though, because her client tends to wake up very early and he likes a blow job before sunrise.  She props herself up to look at her watch.

“Don’t go,” Alec mumbles, sensing her movement.

She has at least another hour before she has to go back upstairs. She sets the alarm on her watch to 4:30 am and lies back down.

“Thank you,” he says as his eyes close.

She brushes his cheek and he catches her hand, holds it to his chest. Scooting closer, she bends her knees until they touch his and she’s lulled to sleep by the quiet sound of his breathing.

 

 

When her watch beeps, he wakes up too. He has rolled on his back while sleeping but he’s still holding her hand over his heart.

“Do you really have to go?” he asks, voice coarse with sleep.

He rests his hand on her waist, ready to pull her to him at the first hint of hesitation.

"Yeah."

She rolls off the bed and it feels like one of the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.

 

She looks at herself in the mirror, fixing her hair and rubbing smudged eyeliner off the corner of her eye. Hardy stands up as well, shaking himself up to wakefulness.

"I’d like to see you again, you know, in the sun," he says.

His request takes her by surprise.

“I don’t know, I don’t think so.”

“Oh. Alright.” He crosses his arms and nods, putting on a brave face. “Why? I thought— that was nice, wasn’t it?”

She wrings her hands, trying to find the words to explain that it’s not about him.   

“Yeah, it was, really, that’s why— let’s just not spoil it, yeah?”

Hardy grimaces.

“Oh, don’t give me that, that’s horseshit.”

He’s right, though. What is she so afraid of anyway?

"Tell you what,” she replies, “meet me at nine in the lobby, we can have breakfast."

 

 

* * *

 

“Remember this?” Hardy asks, selecting a song on Hannah’s iPod and putting it back on the speaker dock.

She smiles brightly as the first notes of  _Moonlight in Vermont_  from the Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong compilation start to play. He sits down next to her on their new sofa and engulfs her in his arms.

“The first time we met,” she says.

“And thank god for that.”

He kisses the crown of her head and she sinks in his embrace.


End file.
